Thursday 10 January 2008

The story continues...

Over the 15 year period since I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes I have had a bit of a roller coaster in terms of my health. Recently I was told that I have a very rare syndrome called Dunningans Syndrome which affects as few as 1:15,000,000. This has gone some way to explain some of the issues that I have been struggling with.

A couple of years ago I had an operation to remove my gall bladder which was an enormous releif after suffering with gall stones for the past 20 years. Whilst I was in hospital, my constantly fast pulse was commented on several times. Even in the middle of the night when I was woken from sleep for my hourly observations it was over 100 beats per minute. After some investigation I was diagnosed with Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia which also goes some way to explain my breathlessness that is regularly commented on, particularly when I answer the telephone - I am often asked if I ran to pick up the phone however I have usually been sat quite near the phone and had to reach out to pick it up.

At last it has also been recognised that I am extremely insulin resistant - not great if you rely upon insulin to stay alive and I was taking the most enormous doses at each injection. I felt a huge sense of relief when this was at last recognised as it had been something I had been really concerned about for years as I seemed to be having to take larger and larger amounts of insulin to get any real control.

Currently I am on 5 injections per day - two injections of a Lantus -like insulin which is non peaking insulin and is taken approxiately 12 hours apart, plus my rapid acting insulin prior to each meal. I have also been on some medication that helps make the cells less insulin resistant and one that is seldom used for insulin dependant Diabetics like myself but it has made a huge difference and my blood glucose levels are, I'm delighted to say, at last within the desired 4 - 7 mmol range. To keep my blood glucose under such tight control is extremely hard work as any Type 1 will tell you but I am escatic to have finally reached that fine control that I have been desperate to reach for years!

Tuesday 8 January 2008

First post...here goes!

Hello and welcome to my little space in Cyberland!

This is where I hope to share some aspects of my life as a Type 1 Diabetic which I hope will be of interest to somebody out there someday.

I was diagnosed as a Type 1 Diabetic when my youngest child was 2 years old. Initially I was hospitalised for over a week which I gather is quite rare now and I was immediately put on insulin which was like a miracle drug. When I was first hospitalised my blood sugars were a staggering 44mmol - that's almost 800mg/dl in US terms and I was really quite poorly.

That was 15 years ago and I thought I'd share a little about my journey with you...